Backup Strategies? Good advice needed

[statik213]

Well, I've got two harddrives with plenty of space to spare on both. I've got stuff I'd like not to lose in a HDD crash on both drives and each drives critical data can be easily backed up on to the other.... making sense?
I'm running winxp pro and I'd like to use the windows backup utility to back file up on harddrive A to Hadrrive B and vice versa....

The Idea[
What I'd like to happen is run a full backup (at the begining of every month?) and then maybe incremental backups on a daily basis.... Does this seem 'smart'?
Also, exactly how would I setup these backups? What settings should I use, anything to avoid? Do I do the full and incremental backup to the same file or different files?

Restoring the media
I've tried this before and am not sure if it is working properly. When I open the .bkf file I see a whole bunch of dated file catalogs, Do I need to restore each of these manually? Starting from the oldest to the newest? Or is there a way of making the backup software restore this in a smart way? i.e. restoring only the newest of each file and not restoring files that were deleted since the first backup.

Alternative: Robocopy
FYI: Robocopy is a XCopy on steriods and is part of the MS WinXP/Windows Server Resource kit, see here.(Description)
Should I use robocopy instead? I could do a daily:
#get rid of deleted files
ROBOCOPY src dest /PURGE
#Mirror changes from src to dest - i.e. copy only the updates
ROBOCOPY src dest /MIR

The second method seems nice 'cos I don't have to mess with the backup utility, I just need to write a simple batch file / windows script... but the problem is that a lot of my data can becompressed a lot and while the windowsbackup doesn't offer much compression it's probably better than the NTFS compression....

So, what should I do? I'm sure this info. would be useful for a lot of people, esp. those who like me don't wanna spend money on backup programs.....

 

[BlueWeasel]

I really like Robocopy's Mirror (MIR) command. I use it to backup data to my USB HD and I don't have to bother with backup software or worrying about the backup.

 

[timswim78]

My adivce would be to put one of the hard drives in an external case or another computer, and then do your backups. Why? Because it is possible that an event that takes out one hdd on your machine will take out the other hdd as well.

 

[statik213]

Originally posted by: timswim78
My adivce would be to put one of the hard drives in an external case or another computer, and then do your backups. Why? Because it is possible that an event that takes out one hdd on your machine will take out the other hdd as well.

I like having two drives internally, have my apps on one drive and windows on another... speeds things up quite a lot...
I'd like to get two more drives to throw in a RAID Mirror to keep my work files on...

 

[Bozo]

Acronis True Image will do everthing you ask including the incremental backups. It will also backup to operating disk without rebooting.

http://www.acronis.com/

You can download it from Newegg for about $35.00

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=1279691SF&DEPA=0


Bozo

 

[statik213]

I'm thinking of doing a combo 7zip / robocopy approach....
Have two lists of files that will be processed by a script. One list will have have files for 7zip to archive and another for stuff I'll be changing daily that will be mirrored with robocopy easily and quickly.....

anyone else interested in a script like this?

 

[Nothinman]

Backing up to a hard disk isn't a great idea, they die too easily. You should backup to 'safer' media like DVD or Tape.

 

[statik213]

Well, daily backups of everything to DVD isn't practical and tape drives are too expensive...
i wil probably do dvd backups once a month or so...

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: statik213

Originally posted by: timswim78
My adivce would be to put one of the hard drives in an external case or another computer, and then do your backups. Why? Because it is possible that an event that takes out one hdd on your machine will take out the other hdd as well.

I like having two drives internally, have my apps on one drive and windows on another... speeds things up quite a lot...
I'd like to get two more drives to throw in a RAID Mirror to keep my work files on...

words of wisdom from timswim. you aren't backed up at all if you are on a drive in the same computer.
I had a server with a couple of drives in in, and it suffered a "power supply event".
It killed everything in that box, except the screws, jumpers and surprisingly enough, the ram

 

[Nothinman]

Well, daily backups of everything to DVD isn't practical and tape drives are too expensive...

Tapes are expensive because they're reliable , disks are cheap because they're not. You have a 50/50 chance of one of thsoe drives dying. How bad would it be for the backup drive to die? Would the time, money, etc saved from having good backups be worth the cache spent on a tape drive or the time spent putting things on DVD? It's your call.

 

[statik213]

Well, I'm not looking for enterprise grade backups here.
There's a pretty decent chance of 1 harddrive failing, two at the same time is a lot less.... A power supply event that zaps both drives is probably like 1 in a billion or a lot worse..


I don't intend to have the harddrive backups as my only backup.... Since it's a pain-in-th-a$$ to backup to DVDs everyday I'd like to have at least some form of backup using my existing setup maximizing the availability of two Harddrives.....

So, my real question, How do I get the best out of Windows Backup with my two harddrive setup?

 

[Nothinman]

Well, I'm not looking for enterprise grade backups here.

Of course not, but if you backup to a hard drive and that hard drive dies and you lose all of your backups isn't that bad?

A power supply event that zaps both drives is probably like 1 in a billion or a lot worse..

Not at all, but of course the chance varies depending on where you live and what kind of power quality you have.

 

[Woodie]

To the question..

Windows Backup is scriptable, to write to a file, etc...(see the help for command-line options).
It also has selectable restore.

Typical strategies:
Full Backup once/week
Incremental daily
Keep all backup files (or tapes, whatever) for 21 days.
AFAIK, when doing a restore, you have to go back to the last full backup (assuming you need to do a full restore), and then restore all the incrementals (in order) until you're current.

Zip/Robocopy/etc... have some significant advantages, and there are several (at least) "backup" products that are based on zipping the backup.

However....
Zip:
Applies pretty decent compression (I get between 50% and 90% average on data files).
Has issues w/ legal filenames from NTFS that aren't legal for FAT32 (&)...used in Favorites, mostly.
Doesn't handle EFS encrypted files (well)
Only handles files...no registry stuff.
Requires some level of scripting/scheduling
Has size limitation of around 2gigs (depends on the version, and what you're trying to do)

Backup:
Restores are harder (and not scriptable)
Can restore entire system, w/ user accounts, shares, ACLs, etc...
No compression, unless the hardware (tape drive) supports it.

Recommendation:
Still reading?? ok, for the OP here...
Since we're talking HD to HD, and the user isn't worried about reinstalling the OS (system state), and is unlikely to be using EFS...
Use a zip or robocopy combo script.
Google for free backup software...you'll find an assortment of pre-done scripts.

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: statik213
There's a pretty decent chance of 1 harddrive failing, two at the same time is a lot less.... A power supply event that zaps both drives is probably like 1 in a billion or a lot worse..

I have had two drives crap out at the same time. I had two Maxtor ATA drives (one with OS and Apps and one with my documents) running on the same channel. There was some kind of hardware failure on the OS/APPS drive and it died. When it died it took out the MBR on the documents drive,, and R-Studio was able to get back about 75% of my stuff. (It was NTFS)

I like your ideas about RAID, but if your files are important, you may want to consider some type of media that is not in your main computer. DVD, Tape, USB HDD, Networked HDD, etc. There are lots of bad things that could happen to destroy your computer.

 

[oog]

i do monthly full backups with ntbackup, weekly incremental ones (because my files don't change that often), and the backup files go on an external drive that is not always on. i'm hoping this protects me from catastrophic failure that takes out both my computer and my backup drive at the same time. i've started setting up rsync to also mirror my data to a friend's computer in another location. i haven't decided yet if that's going to be a regular part of my backup routine.

 

[imported_gusmahler]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Well, I'm not looking for enterprise grade backups here.

Of course not, but if you backup to a hard drive and that hard drive dies and you lose all of your backups isn't that bad?

If your backup fails, get another hard drive. You'll still have more money than if you went the tape route. The only thing to worry about is losing both at the same time.

 

[cubby1223]

Sounds to me like you're ready to venture into the world of RAID! Get a hardware RAID card, mirror the two drives, and it's like an instant backup copy at all times!

Otherwise the process you're doing right now makes absolutely no sense.

Advantages:
super ultra simple to work once set up

Disadvantages:
only contains current data, cannot archive past copies of data (like backup from 1 week ago, backup from 2 weeks ago)

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: cubby1223
Get a hardware RAID card, mirror the two drives, and it's like an instant backup copy at all times!

Except that it's not.

It's far more likely that you get a virus, delete something by accident, or otherwise screw something up yourself than it is that the drive will die. And then that RAID 1 doesn't help you in the least.

@statik: Like so many other people in this thread, I say that you need external storage. Anything else is a cheap hack. The cost of a tape drive or external HD enclosure is small in comparison to the cost of losing your data. If you insist on cheaping out on backups, you're only going to learn this the hard way.